Court, counties' lawyer fees concern Kalkaska prosecutor

LEGAL FEES:

June 30, 2003|By Laurie Lounsbury, Staff Writer

GRAYLING - Editorial writers and disgruntled taxpayers aren't the only ones grousing about enormous legal fees being generated by the lawsuit between the 46th Circuit Trial Court and Crawford and Kalkaska counties.

Kalkaska's prosecuting attorney Brian Donnelly has his own concerns about attorney fees - and his concerns don't stop there. Donnelly sent a letter to all of Kalkaska's commissioners and county department heads, stating, "I have just finished reviewing the Opinion and Order issued by Judge Kolenda … as you can see by his opinion, my concerns about meritless claims filed by the counties' lawyers were well-founded."

What particularly caught Donnelly's attention was a small footnote on the last page of the opinion, where Kolenda reserved the right to make Crawford and Kalkaska counties pay the 46th Court attorney fees if his decision in the lower court is overturned in the appellate court.

Kolenda originally ordered the two counties' attorneys (the firm of Cohl, Stoker, Toskey and McGlinchey) to pay the portion of the 46th Trial Court's attorney fees and Otsego County's attorney fees that related to the defense of Crawford County allegations.

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"Counsel should have known that the law plainly precluded what was being alleged. Clients (the counties) can genuinely plead ignorance of the law," Kolenda wrote in his opinion. In other words, Kolenda's opinion was that the defense lawyers should have known Otsego County had not committed any fraud or mishandling of funds, and they should not have included such allegations in their countersuit.

Kolenda either had a crystal ball or is experienced enough to know what could happen next. Because of this, he included a footnote that states: "If this court's award of attorney fees to the Trial Court is reversed on appeal, this court will reconsider imposing sanctions directly on Crawford and Kalkaska counties."

The defense attorneys did persuade their clients to appeal Kolenda's decision.

If that appeal is successful, the two counties may be ordered to pay plaintiff attorney fees, and the defense attorneys will make more money without spending any money.

"Primarily, we went along with the attorneys because we felt the judge's decision was wrong," Corlew said. "We felt it (Kolenda's footnote) was very heavy-handed, and we took it as a threat."

Corlew isn't worried about potentially losing the appeal and getting stuck with a monstrous legal bill.

"If we win on appeal, how can a lower court judge come back and impose those sanctions?" she said. "If he tries to, we can just appeal it," she said.

In Kalkaska, Donnelly's letter to his board of commissioners was apparently ignored.

"Not one of them responded to it," he said. "I'm trying to make my board understand that, according to my review of the public documents in this case, the lawyers are running us over a cliff with this lawsuit, and by and large they're losing.

"I'll stand firm on my opinion that the board should look into their legal representation and the potentially bad legal advice they've been getting. Why are we paying all this money if all of this lawsuit was nonsense and futile in the first place?"

After four days of testimony earlier this month, the trial resumes Monday in the Crawford County Courthouse and is expected to conclude Tuesday.